Stop abusing the term Innovation!

Yesterday I saw the news that HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai, has dedicated Nov. 22-28 as National Innovation Week, during which UAE institutions will showcase their innovations. Innovation Week will feature the private and public sectors, including education, health, energy, environment, space, economy and services. He stated that “Innovation is not an intellectual luxury, it is the secret behind the evolution and rejuvenation of nations and peoples”.

I fully agree with him that innovations are the “things” that bring people, companies, organizations, countries, and cultures forward. What worried me though, is the plethora of comments, statements, offers for training programs and certifications, articles, and opinions, that all claimed to provide deeper insight into innovation and help people and companies solve their innovation dilemma.

Why was this worrying me? Because all of them had a different interpretation of what innovation actually is, and most were suggesting that Innovation can be addressed and applied within a very short time (fancy a three day Innovation Certification training anyone?). Some interpreted innovation as equal to creativity, others as inventions, some even claimed that their organization or advertisement was innovative.

So I believe it is time to clean up this mess, and properly define what innovation is, and more important what it is not, to reduce the influence of many of those ”quacks” that proclaim to be able to improve the innovation levels of organizations within just a couple of days and a resulting certification.

For those that do not want to read the full article, here my definition of Innovation:

Innovation = Using Creativity to generate Valuable Ideas, and the subsequent Implementation of relevant Inventions to achieve a predetermined Outcome towards an overall Purpose.

Thank you for continuing to read… Why am I so passionate about this topic? As with many of those buzzwords over the recent years – service quality, customer centricity, customer experience, big data – organizations have spent significant amounts of resources to be at the forefront of <fill in the blanks with any of the above buzzwords>. Quite frankly, most have failed and the customers, who ultimately pay for any such initiatives, have not seen the promised results, thus organizations wasted significant amounts of resources we could have used in much better ways. So if we truly want to bring organizations, countries, cultures etc. forward, we have to be able to demonstrate that the outcome of any such initiatives will ultimately result in an increase in value to the end customer (or citizen), who pay for it in the end.

Concept 1: Value Generation
As with any of the buzzword concepts mentioned above, the outcome has to be some sort of value. I define value as the benefit the outcome will generate (and this can be tangible and/or intangible) minus the cost to implement (which also includes tangible and/or intangible costs, as well as the opportunity cost e.g. for other initiatives that could not be done due to the resources being bound into this buzzword initiative).
As a customer (or in the context of countries the citizen) I would want my funding (regardless of the form of it, e.g. price for a product, taxes, fees, time and effort etc.) to go to good use, good meaning here the generation of further benefits and/or lower cost and thus higher value. Therefore, the customer’s evaluation of perceived value provided, will determine or influence the sentiment towards the provider. As such innovation has to be value driven.

Concept 2: Positive Outcome
Many people have ideas, some bring them into prototype or even invention stage, and some yet even go through the extent of obtaining patents for those inventions. But neither ideas, inventions, prototypes, nor patents reflect innovation. Why? Because innovation requires the actual implementation into a marketplace. Without implementation you cannot generate value.

I recently saw an article rating countries on how innovative they are. Categories to determine the innovation level included R&D intensity, productivity, high-tech density, researcher concentration, manufacturing capability, education levels and patent activity. On first review this seemed sensible, but in my opinion they fall short on what innovation actually means as none of them represent actual innovation but merely describe some of the factors that could foster or support innovation, but do not address the implementation and value generation.

Think of the many patents that are filed only to block off competitors from certain markets (e.g. Apple vs. Samsung), to trigger patent infringement lawsuits (e.g. patent trolls), or to generate license revenue without ever having the intention to really use the patent (e.g. Amazon’s patents on One-Click-Purchases and White Photography Backgrounds). On the other hand think of the many ways people in less developed countries overcome obstacles by e.g. recycling or repurposing low cost items or even trash to fit a new purpose (e.g. using old tires to produce low cost sandals). While this is truly generating value (possibly low benefit, but at even lower cost, as such positive value generation) and represent actual implementations used by the people, none of those innovations would ever be considered in ratings as the ones above.

Concept 3: Social or organizational Purpose
If you apply the concept of value generation and positive outcome to determine if something is innovative or what type of innovation individuals or organizations should strive for, first the purpose of the organization, culture, population etc. need to be clearly defined. If you don’t know what the final goal is, how can you find an efficient and or effective way to get there. Since innovation is one of the ways how to get there, without a goal it is not possible to determine value or if an outcome is positive or negative.

Think of the significant R&D spent on products that are harmful (e.g. through side-effects) or even intended to harm people (e.g. weapons, certain chemicals). Without actual implementation, none of the above could be validated for a positive or negative outcome. While some of them could be considered as per this definition as innovations, many would agree that we could well do without them, while others would argue that they are necessary to e.g. fend of danger or increase security (still cherish all the innovations in airport security after flying in and out of the US?). Only the overall purpose, and therefore the context, can provide the criteria to judge this against.

When we call for innovation, we need to make sure that we determine first what type of outcome we expect and how we define benefits and positive outcome, as well as what resources (cost) we can afford, and the context in which this would make sense.

Concept 4: Environment
In my consultancy work I see many organizations implementing initiatives on any of the <fill in the Buzz Word here>. One thing I try to tell my clients is that if any of the initiatives are to succeed, the respective environment needs to be created to foster and cherish the results, and as such the overall goal and even culture needs to be aligned with the initiative, or rather, if the environment cannot be changed, do not even attempt the initiative. This holds true for Customer Experience, where e.g. employees need to be empowered to create individual experiences, as well as for Innovation initiatives, where creativity needs to be fostered, but also the framework for realistic implementation needs to be given. E.g. just training employees on how to be more creative will not make the company more innovative if the ideas are not fairly evaluated and prioritized, proper direction given on what value actually means, and fair appreciation and also proper structured implementation are provided.

An organization does not turn innovative by declaring it through a press release or by merely implementing idea generation initiatives, but rather it needs to define properly the goals of the organization, what type of value the organization is looking for, providing proper guidance, resources, training, and implementation help to the people all throughout the organization. Innovation is as much a mindset as it is a structured, planned, and organized approach embraced throughout the whole organization, aka a culture.

So should we Innovate?
As HH Sheikh Mohammed pointed out, innovation is essential to evolve and rejuvenate the nation and its people. We can therefore be grateful that the leadership in the UAE has set social and organizational purpose through the long term strategic vision for the country and defined values that explain what positive outcome and value actually are. As such I am very confident that many innovations will be conceived and showcased during the National Innovation Week. But I am also realistic enough to expect many organizations or individuals to pay lip service, pass empty shells or initiatives without value as innovations and expect to be applauded and honored (embrace for the marketing messages on innovation flooding social media and your inboxes…).

Yes we should innovate for sure, but if we intend to do this, we need to take an end-to-end realistic approach and understand that Innovation really means the end-to-end of the process, therefore Innovation = Creativity + Implementation. If we take generally accepted common definitions of the respective terms as

Creativity = Imagination of original and valuable ideas

Ideas = Thoughts or suggestions as to possible courses of action or solutions

Implementation = converting ideas into actual products, services or processes (Invention) and making them available for consumption in the marketplace (external end-consumer markets or internal within organizations)

my definition of Innovation would be:

Innovation = Imagination and generation (Creativity) of original and valuable thoughts or suggestions as to possible courses of action or solutions to problems, needs or wants (Ideas), and converting these ideas into actual products, services or processes (Inventions) and making them available for consumption in the marketplace, external consumer markets or internal within organizations (Implementation).

Or shorter:

Innovation = Using Creativity to generate Valuable Ideas, and the subsequent Implementation of relevant Inventions to achieve a predetermined Outcome towards an overall Purpose.

So let’s get out there and be innovative, but please do so in the right manner and stop proclaiming to be innovative if you are not.

Marc Karschies is Managing Partner at "Karschies, Ceron & Alred Consultants" (KCA Consultants), a boutique Customer Experience and Service Quality Management consultancy and training company in Dubai. Follow us on Twitter (@KCA_Consultants), LinkedIn (Karschies, Ceron & Alred Consultants) or Youtube (KCA Consultants).

If you need help in becoming more innovative (environment, creativity, value definition and/or implementation), please contact us at [email protected]